Captain You Planet In The Coffee Shop

I am once again in a coffee shop, and am once again sitting next to a middle-aged man who has decided to start working his phone to arrange his personal business, and keep himself occupied. This is not the same phone-addicted man who has vexed me in the past at this coffee shop. I’m sure that dude will come later. I am a magnet for this sort of person, apparently.

If you want to carry on a phone conversation here, it’s easy to step outside; the weather isn’t bad at all.

But no. We can’t do that. We will inflict ourselves on everyone else in the coffee shop.

I observe that the offenders in these cases are not teenagers, but men even older than I am.

Maybe standards are changing. Maybe it’s not rude to carry out long phone conversations in a coffee shop, and subject everyone around you to your side of the conversation. Maybe it’s just me.

And maybe it’s just me, but maybe you too are driven around the bend by people who sit at the dinner table, or in the middle of a conversation, and text. I’m not talking about people who answer an important or urgent text; I’m talking about people who withdraw from the conversation to carry out text conversations, without leaving the table. A couple of times lately I’ve looked up to find one of my interlocutors deeply enmeshed in texting — this, even though we were in the middle of a conversation. In both cases, the interlocutors decided there was something more important to talk about via text than whatever the people sitting right in front of them were saying, and simply dropped out of the conversation — even, in one case, when the person was being addressed directly.

I don’t get it. I’ve not seen this among older people, but rather among the under-30 set. What is wrong with people? Says the great Brian Regan: “Oh, it’s all about you. You let us know when you’re all set, Captain You Planet.”

UPDATE: Oh good, he left. What kind of vehicle does he drive? I bet you can guess.

I always feel absurdly self-conscious when I’m on my phone in a public place – I always try to keep my voice down and wrap it up as fast as possible.

As far as the car is concerned, I think it’s an equal chance of being either a Hummer or a Prius, since the owners of both tend to the far obnoxious extremes of their respective political alignments…. although in this case, it’s probably a Prius, since Hummer owners probably just get their coffee at the drive-thru.

I agree. It is very rude. There is nothing like being at the grocery store and being followed up and down aisles by a woman fighting on her cell with what one can only guess is their teenage child on the other end of the line. Oh happiness.

I just don’t think it occurs to most people that it’s rude and offensive. Like you, if a pediatric oncologist gets a call or text and he needs to take it, I get that. Most of the time, well, that’s not the case.

My brother and I grew up in a household where it was our moral duty to answer the phone (until 9:00pm) even if we were in the midst of a stroke. Some of that attitude, I’ll be bound, seeped into my consciousness because it takes a real effort on my part at times not to answer a text, or at least check out who sent it.

That’s it – it takes some little effort to be polite and considerate to those around us. Most folks couldn’t care less – not out of deliberate rudeness, but sheer obliviousness.

On guessing the car, I’m going to go with giant SUV. He cares about his own safety without concern for the safety of others. He cares about his own view of the road without worrying about the obstructed views his own large vehicle causes. He doesn’t care about fossil fuel consumption or carbon emissions, because after all, *he* can afford it and it’s not *his* problem. He doesn’t care that his vehicle is ugly, obnoxious or self-aggrandizing, because he cares not for modesty or the opinions of others, only for his own comfort.

Or wait, was I supposed to guess Prius, because he’s clearly a latte-sipping *liberal* based on the fact that you instinctively don’t like him?

A few years ago I went to my favorite restaurant and was enjoying the meal and book by myself. Then a woman was seated at the next table (why, I don’t know, the room was empty)…and proceeded to yak, yak, yak. I couldn’t read my book, or savor the remainder of my food.

As I left, I asked her why she treated a public room as her own dining room –talking loudly, numerous calls, and the like. And how dare she ruin my own private time of eating and reading!

She looked at me in stunned horror, absolutely clueless that anything she did would be amiss. In fact, she was speechless.

Why the room manager didn’t do anything prior remains elusive, though totally agreeable to what I said.

He sounds like the type of person who honestly doesn’t believe that talking on the phone while driving affects his ability to drive.

And I totally read that end quote in that funny voice Regan uses.

As for people dropping out of a conversation to text, I think it has a lot to do with the destruction of the attention span. They’re probably someone who has a TV on in the background while they’re surfing the web with 10 tabs open on their browser.

It affects us all to a lesser extent. Rod, I remember talking about compulsively opening random websites before going to bed and you said you had the same problem sometimes. For these people, the dinner table is just another window open on their browser. The text messages are another, and they have no problem clicking between the two. Add in a mix of narcissism and plain obliviousness, and you’ve got someone who will start texting while you’re talking to them.

Of course, if the gentleman in question would conduct his business via IM/chat/email, you would not be bothered by the volume of his voice. (That may be one reason you are less vexed by the younger set–many younguns prefer to text on their phones than talk on them).

I still think the way to respond to these jerks is to get in on their conversation. They say, “Yeah, she loves red pants” you say “Really? My wife prefers cool colors like green and blue.” If they express that they are offended by your intrusion, tell them, “Hey you can be heard all over this place, I had no idea it was a private conversation.”

Maybe coffee shops need to install “phone booths.” Not with a phone in them. A place to take your phone if you’re going to have a private conversation.

I recall being on a bus and sitting behind a woman who was bellowing various inane comments about her personal life into her cell phone, which exemplified a variety of cringe-inducing white trash stereotypes about sexuality and work ethics. When two of us asked her to quiet down, she responded with exasperation that she had to speak loudly because she was partially deaf.

Sorry, Rod, it’s hard to keep track of which side of the culture war everyone is on now, especially now that the factions are all splitting up and nobody is wearing their uniforms anymore.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer to “What kind of car do you think obnoxious, self-satisfied, middle-aged jerks who talk loudly on their cell phones in coffee shops drive?” is highly correlated to political leanings and the redness/blueness of the region. The answer in some spheres is obviously “Prius or BMW” just as it’s obviously “oversized pickup or SUV” in others.

Every realtor is required to buy, lease, borrow or steal a Lexus. I base this on my very scientific sampling of the handful I’ve had to deal with. So if his business was about showing a property or reviewing a counteroffer, he must have been driving a Lexus.

It only strikes me as rude insofar as a conversation between two people would be rude. So, talking to a friend when you’re supposed to be ordering- rude. Ditto for talking on the phone when you’re supposed to be ordering. Yelling at a friend, or carrying on a conversation in an overly loud tone, in a public place- rude. Same for the phone. Talking at a normal volume with a friend? Fine, and I don’t care if your friend is here or across the country.

There IS something irritating about only hearing one side of a conversation- the brain tries to fill it in, and it’s hard to tune out. But that’s the listener’s problem, not the speaker’s.

What kind of car would an asshole drive? I think the contradictory scatter of guesses (a small car!, a big truck!, a luxury car!) suggest that the vehicle we drive is maybe not really a reliable measure of our character.

I’m at the point where I’m tempted to buy a cellphone jammer, although I’m sure they’re illegal. It would be even more useful than the “TV Be Gone” I got some years ago. It made waiting in doctors’ waiting rooms a lot more peaceful. One click, and there was blessed peace.

Yeah, Greenman, you and me both. Why else would any of us drive a Prius? I especially like running over neighborhood pets in mine while posting details about upcoming WalMart protests to Facebook on my iPhone while driving to yoga class.

Maybe you could purchase an electronic gadget which would delay-echo his voice back at him. (Search for: “Soccer hooligans could be silenced by a new sound system that neutralises chanting with a carefully timed echo”)

Although I totally agree the guy is rude, bear in mind a coffee shop is not the same as a library! 🙂 I’ve had people working alone on laptops give me dirty looks when I was having a live conversation with another human being in front of me, and I don’t think we were being especially loud.

Aha! It is a trick question. The article is about changing norms in arranging personal business and spending time in public and how this has led to a new a commonality of behaviors in: men older than Mr. Dreher, those he breaks bread with (who I guess include his family), his peer group and close associates (those he converses with), and those under 30.

Therefore, the vehicle could be: anything driven by men older than Mr. Dreher, the kind Mr. Dreher or his family drives, the kind driven by his associates, or any vehicle driven by those under 30.
In short, the vehicle is: anything with one or more wheels that is motorized or non-motorized.

I get as irritated as you do by people conducting business or having long personal conversations in public, but I’m a little surprised you find the behavior noteworthy enough to blog about in 2012.

Maybe standards are changing. Maybe it’s not rude to carry out long phone conversations in a coffee shop, and subject everyone around you to your side of the conversation.

That’s the really interesting question, isn’t it? At what point have standards slipped so far that a particular behavior is so common that it’s no longer rude, that the people who complain about it are the rude ones? Think of people who let their dogs bark on and on, or people who drive down residential streets at midnight blasting hip hop, or who blast hip hop in their cars at red lights. In my mind, these people are still rude.

Don’t know how we could get it done, but I like to use the old phone booths that are still in some hotels and other semi-posh public places. The old booths are beautiful and classy, give you a nice place to sit and keep your business your business.

I sat next to a very knowledgeable pilot who was a passenger on a recent flight I was on who was telling me that the restriction against cell phone use on planes has nothing to do with electronic or navigational interference but everything to do with the fact that it prevents people from being obnoxious around their neighbors. So, I say, good for the FAA. Keep that rule in force as long as you can.

Yesterday my mother, sisters, and I spent seven hours in a surgery waiting room. During a half hour in the first half, a licensed musical therapist played a dulcimer, calming songs to prepare her mother for surgery. Wow. Very nice for all of us.
At 4 p.m. , the receptionist left for the day. (There are two waiting rooms.)
Toward the end of the second half, a young woman got into an argument on the phone, started from sitting, then went to striding around. This got louder over a period of 15-20 minutes. My petite, quiet younger sister decided to go tell her she was disturbing people. I went along to back her up. My sister told, her; the offender said she was looking for the door. We took her to the obvious elevator and I stood beside as she continued to yell about child care, at her significant other, until she hove out of sight.